What a great country.

On the job injuries are covered by Worker's Compensation insurance that the employer must purchase.

And trust me, if you are making a WC claim, it takes forever and they are usually intent upon waiting or making you wait until you actually drop dead before approval. That's how it works in MT right next door. And this healthcare issue is not the only major problem with the tar sands boom over there.

and the doctor or hospital takes care of it. It's EASY.

I think the employers probably hire people as contract labor so they don't have to pay for WC. They need to be prosecuted for WC fraud or whatever law they are breaking, if they are doing this habitually.

there was such a rush that many laws were overlooked, someone looked the other way... you might get initial treatment but after that... it gets pretty dicey. Things aren't as readily civilized as one from more developed and highly populated areas might suspect. This OP implies that these people are applying for WC and the state is having issues after that point. You are probably right about the contract workers part and I'm sure that there are many other factors involved like lack of WC agents, there's a big shortage in MT and a lot of these folks are camping in MT as well and some of the companies involved are based in MT which has a really crappy WC functionality record and there are lots of openings in that agency.

All this boom happened so fast that it will be years for the infrastructure in both ND and MT to catch up. And it's not quite as easy as you might imagine to even get to a place where care is provided, takes a while to get anywhere up here.

If you are self-employed and can't afford insurance....tough shit.

Here is South Dakota's statutes on it.

http://legis.state.sd.us/statutes/DisplayStatute.aspx?Statute=62-4&Type=Statute

It seems that all agencies are in a state of "overwhelmed". It may be the law but I can guarantee that there is a fair number who get away with it because of sheer volume of employers and lack of agency enforcement personnel. It's pretty much a catastrophuck in that area at present on all levels of human support and law enforcement of any kind.

I can hear a number of employers laughing at the bar... "we don't need no stinking WC insurance, these workers are a dime a dozen and we can always get new ones... keep 'em on contract!" It's more a reality than most civilized folk might imagine for this century.

advise them to get informed about insurance issues before they go.

they are bedazzled by the fantasies of the money they think they can have buy going there, doing "whatever it takes" and often signing away rights in the fine print when they hire on with some operator.

Laws don't apply when there is no enforcement and no one gets caught. In what was, until recently, the least populated state in the lower 48, such a large influx of workers, one can expect such conditions to persist.

Yes, I have tried to talk to some who went off to the gold rush and the dangers they may face and the response was always based on having a chance at getting out of an unemployment sinkhole, any danger would be faced when they arose. Once you get there, sometimes at great cost - as in your last $100 - there are few alternatives than to take what's offered, and often the workers are not paid what was advertised, the housing costs are exorbitant... it is so much like many mining booms where the company owns everything for miles... not much has changed in that world. Sure the workers should organize but the companies will see that they rarely have the opportunity to gather and compare notes. If you've never seen this kind of ownership serfdom before, you have no idea how well the owners control and protect their interests that consider workers as disposable and basically, many of them do sign their life away when taking the jobs laws be damned.

You can sit and speculate at your computer about how things ought to be but it makes no difference on the ground on location... unless you go there and try to make changes. Doing that might become a serious danger to your well being as the "Pinkerton" types are also there to protect the oligarchy. It wouldn't surprise me if drones were put to use there first.

http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-destructive-canada-oil-sands-2012-10?op=1v

The issue the courts ruled on was whether or not Fedex drivers were contracted or employees. The court said that if the "employee" had no conrol over their schedule, i.e. the employer mandated the hours and days the employee must work, then he is an actual employee not a contracted employee.

Added to the Fedex ruling, was the fact that Fedex also had the employee use Fedex vehicles and a few other things they supplied, made the workers employees.

Using the court ruling in regard to the North Dakota, these field workers are employees not "contracted employees". Therefore Workers Compensation should be utilized when they are injured.

This is the reason we need these workers to organize. I'm pretty sure that the majority of them have no idea what their rights are. OSHA and the NLRB needs to investigate what the hell is going on & fine these companies. Even if as one poster stated that these companies are Canadian based, it doesn't matter. All companies doing business in the US has to abide by US laws.

EVERY employer carries workman's comp. Right?

business and who have an inherent huge risk of terrible injury damned well better. They'll lose ALL the lawsuits that should be filed against them.

It's compensation for injury. You still need medical coverage.

In 2014 as there will be opportunities to purchase affordable health insurance through the ND exchange.

I mean, if the government would just get out of the way, we could clearly hire even more and more (...desperate people willing to risk their limbs - and life - simply to be able to provide a basic living for their families). Afterall, the debt incurred by the uninsured isn't on our company books, right? Plus the only reason we're doing any of this is so for FREEDOM - so we're not beholden to all those nasty Arabs. I mean, can't you all see what a problem all these government rules and regulations like safety standards are? Just get them off the books and every one (...of the executive staff...) will earn more money and live happily ever after...

And welcome to DU.

Workers' Comp and OSHA should be extracting a serious amount of fees from the employers. If not, criminal charges and prison time PLUS fees and penalties.

Wake up, folks. We're in the 21st century. We shouldn't be doing business like it's the mid-1800s.

...although a little intimidating to see # of posts such as 32K, 43K, 63K... and my 7.... now 8.

You need to reply to the "Reply to this post" line at the bottom right of the post that gave you the welcome, rather than that same line from the originating post. Your welcomer won't be notified that you wrote back.

Have fun here.

Don't be intimidated. Some posters just do a lot of K&R posts. Posts with no content, just to Kick the post to the top of the list and say they Recommend.

...thanks for the tip!